You can’t make this stuff up. On Sunday, with swaths of eastern China shrouded in a polluted haze, Chinese state media decided to release a list of five “surprising benefits” of smog. Here, courtesy of Wang Lei, an editor for China Central Television’s website, are five good things about bad air:

1. It unifies the Chinese people.
2. It makes China more equal.
3. It raises citizen awareness of the cost of China’s economic development.
4. It makes people funnier.
5. It makes people more knowledgeable (of things like meteorology and the English word haze).

I’d like to think the piece as well-intentioned satire. Perhaps it was. But the article, which has since been pulled, was followed by another piece of pollution promotion. On Monday, the Global Times published a piece that said air pollution might help the Chinese military by obscuring sight lines, reducing the effectiveness of surveillance and weapons systems.

For the most part, China’s netizens were not impressed. “It is a public tragedy that half of China is engulfed in smog, wrote one. “We should not entertain ourselves by this tragedy.” Wrote another: “The smog weather makes CCTV much stupider. They always treat us as fools.”

But there was a rare point of agreement on item No. 4. China’s official attitude to smog is, indeed, a joke.

The government officials would twist the
argument by saying this sacrifice is worthwhile to unite the country and
make her stronger, and the ultimate goal is to realise the dream of the Renaissance of the Chinese Civilization/Nation. Perhaps a few of the top leaders like Xi have this genuine intention but I am doubtful how many of his counterparts follow this dream and true believer of the Communism. I believe a similar principle has been applied leading to the
'invention' of the Great theory of "Communism with the Chinese
Characteristics" or "One Country Two Systems".

In addition, it is right to get rich this way (as Deng claimed) but Den might not expect so much of the Wealth of the Nation has been shipped out of
the country by officials and their family members for personal gains. Perhaps, the same kind of money may have been invested overseas as sovereignty funds in buying up foreign country bonds, shares,
major businesses and infrastructures in order to
gain political power on the world stage via economic means.

China must
realise that her competitive advantage will be losing out soon
because other former Communist countries already copied the same
economic development model to get rich quickly. This mode of development is un-sustainable both economically and politically. China may be the victim of her own success soon if this continues. That may also explains the
phenomenon why so many middle class and rich people are setting up their
second homes overseas, as they can't see any real hope of fundamental change in their life time, a kind of insurance to safeguard the future of themselves and their offspring. Very sad indeed for any nation which would end up like this.

I trust that the comments of kennedymike speak certain truth of the root cause of this problem. The government officials don't care about the health or life of her people, and would argue this sacrifice is worthwhile to unite the country together. While busy making a lot of money through this and shipping the wealth out of the country with their family members. Learn the trick now??

I have reason to believe that this article is being intentionally misleading. Calling this propaganda sounds
more like anti-sino propaganda than anything. China is obviously not at the forefront of environmental friendliness but they are trying. From what I can interpret of those 5 "benefits", the message isn't intentionally a bad one. This is a very typically Chinese way to
encourage something, in this case greener living, by sending a positive message rather than guilt trip everyone. It's possibly saying "Pollution
is bad, but because we are working together to reduce it, it is making
us more unified. We are learning more about our world and our surroundings, and because of this, it uplifts our spirits, so let us continue in our endeavor to improve our country and not give up
even if gets tedious". Saying that these points were written about smog without giving us the context in which it was worded is a bit questionable.

In any case, I'd love to see a direct link to the article. Translations are tricky enough in any language, especially a language like Chinese which can be so easily misinterpreted by non-native speakers. Maybe the article was in poor taste, and indeed the government does tend to treat its people a bit too much like children or like they're all still farmers, but framing it like the Chinese government is trying to make people think smog is a great thing seems pretty biased to me.

As for the other article about military defense, again, article in bad taste, but the Chinese can be quite a curious people. I wouldn't be too surprised that they'd mention something like that if not more like a trivia point than an actual propaganda piece.

I am willing to be proven wrong if I come across doubtless evidence from sources by Chinese people in China of all these terrible things that China is constantly accused of doing. I know they are far from perfect, but honestly this article gives me the impression that you are really trying too hard to make China the enemy.

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"I can see their flatulence from here... sorta briny yellow and rising like stink on...." Sarah Palin

Seriously, what goes around comes around and, in this case, they are planting, nourishing, the seeds for their self destruction. They know only what they know, they can't create, they can only duplicate with precision and, in this case, they, like robots, duplicate to their demise.

Both, most likely, with the government holding a tight rein on press and this one in particular being their state media, most of their staff probably understand that they print/publish what the government ask (or rather the politburo) and when they write anything they print/publish what government allows.

To do otherwise means either losing your job, or worse having a taste of reeducation camp.

China is not as tight as they used to be, but if government says publish it to the state media... you do exactly that if you want to keep working there...

The Communist Party runs China, and this nonsense about smog being beneficial is a lot of hogwash they foist on their people. China's central government exerts its power when it wants to, most notably when it wants citizens who complain to shut up and go away, yet it does nothing about the worsening air pollution that is poisoning its people. That is because high-ranking party members have their hands in all kinds of businesses and industries, including the very ones that generate the pollution. Cleaning up would mean less money in their pockets.

yeah, keep laughing boys. if we stop the smog, you and your kids (that's pretty much the entire US and the west) will walk the streets and schools naked. your kids will have no toys for christmas, parents will have to wash clothes and dishes by hands. oh, and forget about the iphones, ipads, ieverything you have enjoyed.

you hear that? now, go drink you starbucks off the cups from that smog and be quiet.

@chinaman03 nah. I have plenty of clothes and I know how to make my own. I hate iPads etc. I actually know how to wash clothes and make my own dishes out of clay or plastic. Yah, we knew how to do this before you did.

@chinaman03 Strangely we all managed quite well without you before now. Chinese goods are generally rubbish quality and the more sensible among us avoid them like the plague - some of us have higher standards here in the West and may that number increase soon.

@chinaman03 Wrong your days are done, we have 3d printers we don't need china labor, we have plenty of jobs here in the USA. Plus your all going to die of lung cancer soon anyways from all that pollution. Keep sucking it in deep.

Well at least they're very optimistic....where we see a polluted dystopian hellscape, they see opportunities! The chinese....always looking at the glass half full....of toxic waste. Plus I guess now they can smoke cigarettes all the time since they're bound to get lung cancer or emphazema anyway. Those Chinese sure do make the best of things : /